Fixes will take prayer and pen | Sadiqa Reynolds

Gov. Matt Bevin shakes audience member Kalvin Brown's hand after the Louisville resident approached the podium during the Kentucky governor's talk about curbing the violence through prayer. Brown said more money was needed as well to provide jobs and start businesses through loans.(Photo: Matt Stone/CJ)Buy Photo

The Louisville Urban League supports the idea of corporate prayer coupled with corporate investment.

God can do his part but he wants us to meet him halfway. The Governor, with his mighty pen, must change broken policy, must use his time with the President of the United States to assist in helping "the least of these."

God will be honored when leaders do their work. Depending on his heart, a governor that prays is a good thing, but praying while promulgating policy that kills and destroys does not honor God. Faith is necessary but faith without works is dead.

Let's require that the percentage of minorities on a construction job reflect the percentage of minorities in that community. And declare that they must, in fact, be from that community and not Louisiana, Georgia or elsewhere. At the very least, make the city and state training programs priority for hiring.

Please make sure people have access to affordable health care. We can call it Bevincare, Trumpcare or anything other than Obamacare but don't be a part of taking it away. We know it needs to be fixed but the fix should cover more people, not fewer.

Require that every developer building housing in our state set aside a certain amount of that housing for affordable housing. Let's deconstruct the idea of concentrating poverty.

Treat black drug addicts with the compassion and humanity with which you treat the drug addicts in your own family. We could have saved entire communities with what we are now spending on Narcan. Our police are reviving some people twice in a day because life is valuable and worth saving. Show us that you love God and that our lives are valuable too.

So, we will continue to pray but we will be working hard and ask that you would do the same. We want the violence to end and we believe it requires us to deal with past ills and painful policy.

Sadiqa N. Reynolds, Esq., is president & CEO of the Louisville Urban League.